May 29, 2017

Alan Shapiro: Newton's "Experimental Philosophy"

Newton abjured using the term “experimental philosophy,” widely used
in Restoration England at the start of his career, until 1712 when he
added a passage to the General Scholium of the Principia that briefly
expounded his anti-hypothetical methodology.

Drafts for query 23 of the
second edition of the Opticks (1706) (which became query 31 in the third
edition), however, show that he had intended to introduce the term to
explain his methodology earlier.
Newton introduced the term for polemical purposes to defend his theory of gravity against the criticisms of Cartesians and Leibnizians but, especially in the Principia, against Leibniz
himself. “Experimental philosophy” has little directly to do with experiment, but rather more broadly designates empirical science.

Newton’s
manuscripts provide insight into his use of “experimental philosophy”
and the formulation of his methodology, especially such key terms as
“deduce,” “induction,” and “phenomena,” in the early eighteenth century.